I didn’t like having to turn my speakers off when I left my apartment. I had already figured out how to turn all my lights off with IFTTT so why not make this work with Sonos. Using a Raspberry Pi and a Sonos command-line interface I hooked up a very basic home REST API where I could detect my phone leaving a location using a geofence.

Raspberry Pi model B plugged into an Airport router via Eithernet. This puppy is always on and has a port mapped to the outside world for external access.

Now when I leave it makes a request to my home and the music turns off.

I had direct experience in every aspect of interrogation and intelligence in the so-called “war on terror.” From producing intelligence through interrogation to assessing it to seeing policies made from it, I was there. Let me be clear about what I learned: Torture undermines all sound principles of good interrogation, intelligence collection, and assessment. It does not work, it is unnecessary, it is illegal, it betrays our ideals and our nation’s laws. There is no practical, legal, moral, or utilitarian argument in favor of torture. We don’t need it, and it betrays who we seek to be. No fine-tuning of the law is necessary to justify it — ever.

Order placed May 18, 2015. They warn three months delivery time – bananas.

Two months later, they warn of an additional 2-3 months.

Two months later, they say it will be sent within three weeks:

Today is three weeks later, and I don’t have my Soylent, but after waiting so long I have no real expectation of ever consuming the product. Which means what, exactly? That I have learned what I came to learn.

The Silicon Valley hype cycle comes with a fierce blast of disinformation. If you don’t try out high-hype things for yourself, you can’t know the truth.

I feel bad for the people at Soylent. They must be stressed beyond belief. I wonder what’s happening inside their bubble.

A new device developed by Kei Nakatsuma at University of Tokyo Department of Information Physics and Computing lets you use the back of your hand as a touch pad. Encased in the form of a wrist-watch, the device uses infrared sensors to track the movement of your finger across the back of your hand and translate it into the same sort of signals a mouse or a laptop touch pad provides.

This may seem sort of trivial, but there are some interesting uses this functionality could provide. First of all, since you can feel the back of your hand and feel with the back of your hand, you’ve got built-in haptic feedback

I can imagine Soundcloud adding advertising in a way that doesn’t betray its soul.

The company’s soul is to serve sound creators. It’s not to serve advertisers. Thus browsing the site has no ads.

However some sound creators, basically the highly visible professional acts, need to monetize their plays. They don’t mind paying for hosting and a widget but that’s only part of what they need. Soundcloud is underserving them without enabling ad monetization. It serves their needs by enabling them to earn money from ads.

Problem: how can it sell advertising without gettings its incentives misaligned? It must continue to serve the bands first, not the advertisers.

Solution: If Soundcloud didn’t take any cut of the ad revenues, its incentives would remain aligned with the sound creators. It could charge a flat fee for this option, and create APIs that enabled third parties to sell ads.